The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

Oda loved these intense, nervous minutes before they went live. Every Friday, for forty minutes,
this was as close to the centre of the world as it was possible to get in Norway. Between 20 and 25
per cent of the country’s population saw the programme, an insanely high viewing percentage for a
talk show. Those working here were not only where it happened, they were what happened. This
was celebrity’s magnetic North Pole which attracted everything and everyone. And because
celebrity is an addictive drug and there is only one compass point from the North Pole – south,
downwards – everyone clung onto their jobs. A freelancer like Oda had to deliver in order to be on
the team next season, and that was why she was so happy, on her own behalf, to have received the
call late yesterday afternoon, just before the editorial meeting. Bosse Eggen himself had smiled at
her and said this was a scoop. Her scoop.
The evening’s theme was to be adult games. It was a typical Bosse theme, suitably serious without
being too weighty. Something about which all the guests could express a semi-qualified opinion.
Among the guests was a woman psychologist who had written a thesis on the topic, but the main
guest was Arve Støp who would be celebrating Liberal’s twenty-fifth anniversary the following
day. Støp hadn’t objected to the angle of the playful adult, the playboy, when Oda had had a
preparatory meeting with him in his flat. He had just laughed when she had drawn a parallel with an
ageing Hugh Hefner wearing a dressing gown and smoking a pipe at an eternal bachelors’ party in
his mansion. She had felt his eyes on her, inspecting, curious, right up to the moment she had asked
him whether he regretted not having a child, an heir to the kingdom.
‘Have you got any children?’ he had asked.
And when she had replied in the negative he had, to her astonishment, suddenly seemed to lose
interest in both her and their conversation. She had therefore quickly rounded off by giving him the
usual information: arrival and make-up times, preferably no striped clothing, themes and guests
could change at short notice since this was a topical programme, and so on.
And now here was Arve Støp in Lounge, Studio 1, straight from make-up, with his intense blue
eyes and thick grey hair which was groomed, but just long enough for the tips to bob up and down
in suitably rebellious style. He was wearing a plain grey suit which everyone knew cost an arm and
a leg, though no one could say how they knew. A tanned hand was already out to greet the
psychologist who was sitting on a sofa with peanuts and a glass of red wine.
‘I didn’t know psychologists could be so beautiful,’ he said to the woman. ‘Hope people can listen
to what you say as well.’
Oda watched the psychologist hesitate before beaming. And even though the woman clearly knew
that Støp’s compliment was a joke, Oda saw from the sparkle in her eyes that it had hit home.
‘Hi, everyone, thank you all for coming!’ This was Bosse Eggen sweeping into the room. He started
with the guests on the left, shook hands, looked them in the eye, declared how happy he was to have
them on board, told them that they could interrupt with questions for the other guests or make
comments; it would enliven the conversation.
Gubbe, the producer, signalled that Støp and Bosse should withdraw into a side room to have a chat
about the structure of the main interview and the intro to the programme. Oda checked her watch.
Eight and a half minutes until they were live. She was just beginning to be concerned and wondered
whether to phone reception to find out if he was waiting there: the real main guest. The scoop. But
as she raised her eyes, there he was in front of her with one of the assistants, and Oda felt her heart
skip a beat. He wasn’t exactly good-looking, perhaps he was even ugly, but she was not ashamed to